


Exhibit of Legends

by Tallihensia



Category: Smallville
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-26
Updated: 2015-01-26
Packaged: 2018-03-09 03:05:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3233945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tallihensia/pseuds/Tallihensia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When one outlives everything... there are still things to be enjoyed.  This ficlet is for new beginnings</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exhibit of Legends

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a Clexmas Stocking Stuffer for [Clexmas](http://clexmas.livejournal.com). Stocking stuffers are just little things meant for general community gifts and aren't supposed to be too long. 
> 
> See the complete set of Clexmas Postings for 2014 at: <http://clexmas.livejournal.com/103333.html>

## Exhibit of Legends

It had been ages. Literally. A longer time than most people should have lived, and yet he still walked this planet. Or flew around it, depending on what he was doing at the time. 

Clark Kent had lived a natural life and then when he was old, he didn't show up for work one day and was eventually presumed dead. Superman had died in battle. Nobody had ever connected the two. 

He'd outlived all his friends, his wife, his family, even his enemies. When he had been a kid, he had thought it would be the end of everything, to live when all of them were gone. But he made new friends, and found new loves. That was how the world worked. Sure, time went by, and he missed them with fond memories... but there were new ones being made and new people constantly coming in. It was still wondrous, and people were still delighting him. And frustrating him as well. 

He made new hero identities when times called for it, and when he felt like it. He didn't feel the pressure he did when he was young – there were others out there now, and the world would survive without him. But when there were wrongs he could right and villains to be fought that nobody else could... then he stepped in. 

Nobody ever recognized him. Why should they? Who would have even imagined he would still be around, after all this time?

Clark, though he hadn't used the name for ages, wandered through the annual "Birth of Superman!" exhibit and tried not to laugh inappropriately. It made him nostalgic, seeing the exhibits and how they'd distorted the legends over time. Regretful as well. Everything turned to black and white, with pure evil and pure good, leaving out the grays that had been. One would think with as much recording material and documentation there had been at the time, that things would be a little closer to the truth. But then, history was always written by the victors, or the survivors. Things slanted so they made sense to the world of the day, not the world of then.

He wore his hair long and tied back in a pony tail, but that was as far as his disguise went even here. He looked up at the larger than life projections of Superman and his arch-enemy and thought that no one would recognize them even if they'd worn the same things, the images were so different than what they really were. 

"With all the photos and videos from back then, you'd think they could get those projections more accurate," an amused, disapproving voice next to him said.

Clark couldn't help turning to look.

Almost as tall as he, slender strong body, short brown hair in a crew cut, laughing blue-grey eyes.

Clark blinked.

A familiar mouth twitched up in a near smile as he waited for Clark's evaluation.

He was wearing a vest without a shirt, and tight pants that were as near to jeans as they had in the culture. There were tattoos on his arms. 

Clark's breath drew in at the one woven around his right arm. Two serpents entwined around the arm. It was impossible to tell if they were fighting or embracing. Nobody knew about that. Nobody. It had never made it into the Superman legend.

Flipping to x-ray vision, he scanned the person next to him. There was a box in his vest pocket he couldn't see through – and there wasn't any pure lead made _anywhere_ on the planet nowadays. The left wrist had a dark line all through the bone. Regeneration might be possible, but trauma that severe still left it's marks.

"Lex?" Clark whispered, unable to believe his senses.

"Hello, Clark," was the reply, and that cinched it. Nobody had ever figured out Superman's secret identity, it was nowhere in the records or even speculated on.

Clark closed his eyes, then opened them again and looked back up at the figures.

"It's funny," the person said, stepping next to him and also looking up. "When they started having these celebrations, they picked a supposedly random date, because they weren't using the old calendar anymore. But really, if one did have an old calendar, and knew what the dates were... there's a certain irony over the dates they picked."

"You didn't..."

Lex snorted. "I had nothing to do with it. I wasn't around at the time." He hesitated, "Really not around. I'll tell you about it sometime."

Clark was somewhat giddy at the thought that there would be a sometime. Here he had just been thinking he was doing fine on his own, without anybody from the past, but just look at him now. Maybe he hadn't been so fine as that. Or maybe... maybe it was something he'd never thought he could have.

"What date was it?" Clark hadn't actually been paying attention when they chose it. He tried not to look back all that often.

Lex looked at him steadily. "It's the time for new beginnings, and resolutions. The passage of the old, the start of something fresh. To leave behind mistakes and anger and resentments of before, and look ahead to what possibilities might be instead."

Clark drew his breath in. "At midnight?" They didn't use that term anymore either, but there was still a clock of sorts, and a turning of the times.

"At midnight," Lex agreed. Then he grimaced. "Well, at midnight tomorrow. They missed it by a day."

Clark laughed. "I think I like that better. That would have been too much. And this way, we have a full day to get ready." He tilted his head and looked at Lex. "I have some wine at my place. Want to see if any of them are still good?"

"I haven't had a drink for..." Lex paused and then shook his head, abandoning the attempt. "If you're willing, sure."

"I'm willing," Clark replied. "Let's go find something that's right for a new beginning."

Together, they left the exhibit of legends and went to find something real.

 

===========


End file.
